‘This is not a civil war, but a war of criminalized and terrorist networks’

The UN envoy for Afghanistan urged the Security Council on Friday to demand that the Taliban immediately stop attacking cities in their offensive to take more territory as American and NATO troops pull out of the country, according to The Associated Press.

Deborah Lyons also called on the international community to urge both sides to stop fighting and negotiate to prevent a “catastrophe” in war-torn Afghanistan.

The latest Taliban surge, she warned, is reminiscent of attacks on large urban centers in Syria’s war and the Bosnian war in the 1990s that devastated Sarajevo.

For his part, the Afghan ambassador to the United Nations denounced the Taliban offensive as a “deliberate act of barbarism,” and claimed the insurgents are being aided in their onslaught by more than 10,000 foreign fighters from 20 terror networks, including Al-Qaeda and the ISIS group.

He offered no evidence to back up his claim.

“This is not a civil war, but a war of criminalized and terrorist networks, fought on the back of Afghans,” said Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai.